21km from Burqa]. I moved the animals there because I have collection wells
there but here, there is no water so how can I water them? If I wanted to keep
them here, I would need to bring water tanks every other day which would cost
around 30 Jordanian Dinar [$42]. Keeping my animals is the only way I can
earn a living so I can’t give them up, and I have eight children who depend on
me to be able to afford to get married.
The water company Mekorot sources the water from Beit Iba well [located in
the West Bank] and it is controlled by Israel.
Friend of A. Salah: They [Israel] only allow us 100 cubic meters a day and I
know this because I used to work in the village council. When I worked at the
council, one meter of water used to cost us eight shekel [$ 2.2], and then we
would sell it to the people of Burqa for three shekel [$ 0.8]. This meant that
all the revenue we received from other services and taxes would be used so
that the residents of Burqa would be able to get water from Israel. This has
led to young people leaving this village. Look at the situation my friend Abd
al-Salam is in. His home is at the top of the village and he suffers a lot. He had
to move all his sheep to another village (Atara) to survive; he had to because
there is no water here. In Burqa, it is not only Abd al-Salam who suffers from
the lack of water, you can find no less than 50 to 70 houses who live on the hills
who are really suffering too.
Look at the colonies; of course, this is an Israeli policy against us! All of the
colonies have water 24 hours a day. Shafi Shamroun, which is the colony next
to us, I am sure it gets 1000 cubic meters of water a day. If they wanted to give
us enough water they could, but it’s clear that this is a policy the occupation
uses against us.
Everyone who gets married goes to work in Ramallah and eventually they go
and live there too. Everyone is always saying that they can’t stand to live in
Burqa when there is no water. Not to mention the ones who have left Palestine,
and why? Because of this pressure!”
A. Salah, Burqa, Nablus.
Interview: 20 February 2017
In addition to systematic discriminatory allocation, Israel has engaged
in a variety of practices to deny water access to individual Palestinian
communities in the West Bank, particularly communities located in areas
that Israel desires to appropriate for colony expansion or future annexation.167
The denial of permits for water projects, for example, extends to those
167 Amnesty International, Troubled Waters, 36-37, supra note 37.
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